Probably because this is one of the worst things you can do to a business district. The reason we have meters in the first place is to keep cars coming and going, rather than parked all day and stopping people from shopping. Allowing free parking with puchase in the garage fixes that problem completely.

I believe the Chamber of Commerce favored another plan. The one where you received free garage parking for spending money in Hoboken stores. With this plan my friend who is visiting friends in NYC but doesn't want to drive in NYC just got free parking, rather than having to pay for a garage.
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Not to worry, I'm sure only my friend and no one else will figure out they can do this and potential shoppers won't have trouble finding on street parking.

Really? I have a friend visiting today and rather than park in a garage she just got free on street parking. We're going to catch up with people in NYC and she doesn't like to drive in NYC so this just saved her over 20+ bucks in Hoboken garage costs.

Jabby I'm trying to understand what you're saying here. You say that doing this will make no difference to stores because most visitors use mass transit and it will also make no difference to residents because residents for some inexplicable reason will not park there either even though it's free and means they won't have to move their cars for street cleaning.

If you're correct, then there is no reason whatsoever to do this and the city is flushing away revenue for no reason whatsoever, a conclusion I completely concur with.

Yet oddly, after making a compelling argument for the complete stupidity of this expensive exercise in political grandstanding, you say that its something so obviously worth doing that the debate about it is "silly."

Maybe I'm missing something here. If I an please feel free to clarify. While you're clarifying, perhaps you can explain why you believe that commuters who park in lots and take the PATH in will choose not to take advantage of the free on street parking.

Jabby says we should do it because there are no beneficiaries at all and the debate about whether literally flushing $50,000 - $100,000 in revenue down the toilet for no reason is a good idea is "silly."

I guess "silliness" is in the eye of the beholder since IMHO Jabby's post takes the "silliness cake."

If our City creates an open free parking policy it seems foolish in the extreme to not expect people to use it. And open means open, it is without restrictions. It's silly to wet ones pants and call people awful for using the policy as designed.
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I think the policy the Council Majority and the Chamber of Commerce worked on that allowed for free garage parking with proof of spending in Hoboken was a good incentive to shop here while not making city streets defacto vistor parking lots.
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Perhaps some residents and councilpeople need to think a policy through before supporting it.

Jabby, I think you misunderstood FAP. He didn't say his friend was wrong to take advantage of a freebie that the City was inexplicitly offering. Of course she will and she should and that's the point.

Doing this costs money and no one has yet explained what the City is buying for that money. You have now posted several times and other than saying we've done this before so we should so it again you haven't even attempted to identify what we are buying.

Spending money and getting nothing in return is not simply silly, when its taxpayer money it's irresponsible. My guess is that meter revenue for five days is conservatively $50,000. Please let us know exactly what benefit taxpayers will be receiving that justifies this expenditure that would be enough pay a new policeman's salary for a full year.

But I guess to you $50,000 of taxpayer money flushed down the toilet for no reason other than Councilpeople wanting to pretend they're doing something "doesn't matter either way." You say "talk about entitled" - I say "let's talk about stupid."

I took full advantage of this over the weekend and had guests parked outside of my building for hours on the southwest side of Hoboken. We went to our annual Christmas lunch at Biggie's (on Newark) & had to park in a city garage because (as expected) there was no parking on Washington Street. However, our garage parking was free because we spent more than $200 on lunch & split the bill 3 ways so everyone had more than a $20 receipt. We did not drink.

By my count we saved $42 on cabs (3 round trip cabs, $14 each) and $10 on 2 hang tags. The city received no benefit. The business that received our lunch $$ would have done so regardless. Hooray for this plan.

*we had a couple of pregnant women & a physically handicapped person in our party, hence the cabs.